Associated British Foods is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with sales of £11.1 billion and 102,000 employees in 46 countries. It aims to achieve strong, sustainable leadership positions in markets that offer potential for profitable growth and deliver quality products and services that are central to people's lives.

The group operates through five strategic business segments: Sugar, Agriculture, Retail, Grocery and Ingredients and also has various other significant businesses worldwide.

KEY FACTS ABOUT ABF:

•ABF is at the heart of the UK agricultural industry and is its biggest customer. The company buys more primary products from British farmers than any other group. ABF has leading market positions in sugar, seed enhancement, grain and animal feeds production.

•ABF's sugar processing business, British Sugar, is Europe's most efficient sugar producer. It buys the entire UK sugar beet crop and supplies half the UK's requirement for sugar. British Sugar crop was of 1.19m tonnes in 2009 financial year. Its sales to retail outlets amount to four million bags of sugar a week making Silver Spoon a leading UK food brand.

•ABF's joint venture businesses, Frontier, is a leading supplier of cereal inputs and marketer of farm-sourced grain.

•The Ingredients business is a key growth area for ABF in the UK and North America. The group applies technical skills in producing functional ingredients from natural products.

•ABF is a major manufacturer of both branded and private label grocery products. Some of the best known household brands include Twinings, Ovaltine, Mazola, Ryvita, Silver Spoon, Tip Top and Kingsmill.

•The group's retail textile business is represented by Primark in the UK and Penneys in Ireland. There are currently 238 Primark stores and around 8.08m sq ft of selling space, of which around one third are in the Republic of Ireland. Total employees currently stand at over 36,000 in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Portugal.

•ABF's foods operation in Australia and New Zealand, George Weston Foods (GWF), is a major processor and producer of branded food products. GWF's baked goods enjoy a 75% penetration of Australian households and Tip Top is Australia's leading food brand.